Every month, enterprises require more information, delivered faster, with greater reliability -- and traditional data storage methods no longer suffice. Enter the Storage Area Network (SAN), which can store enormous amounts of data, serve it at lightning speed, scale to meet accelerating growth, and deliver unprecedented reliability. Now, there's a complete guide to SAN technology for every IT professional and decision-maker. Storage Area Networks covers it all: key concepts, components, applications, case studies, implementation, management, and much more. Start with the basics: what SANs are, what they can do, and how they overcome the critical limitations of previous approaches to data storage. Understand Fibre Channel, the key enabling technology for SANs. Next, compare approaches to configuring SANs; walk through typical SAN backup, restore, and disaster recovery scenarios; and discover today's best practices for building SANs atop your legacy storage topology. Finally, preview the future of SANs, including policy-based SANs, ASP and storage rental applications, self-healing devices, and the growing role of the storage management professional. The book also includes an interview with Duane Zitzner, President of Computing Systems at HP.